Mike Petrilli at the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute has an interesting post about the high expulsion rate in DC charters (72 students are expelled from DC charters for every one expelled from the public schools). Be sure to read the story in the Washington Post that he refers to as well as the short video, in which Mike Petrilli appears).

Usually, corporate reformers insist that charter schools enroll exactly the same kids as the public schools. They even insist that attrition rates from charters are no different from public schools. They claim that if they could get high scores with “exactly the same kids,” why can’t public schools.

Petrilli disagrees. In effect, he says that charters are not for all kids. Charters are for strivers. So what if they kick out the lazy kids and the troublemakers. He thinks that’s a good thing because it rids the charter of the kids who don’t want to learn. That way, they can do their best for the strivers and not waste time on the non-strivers.

This commentary by Petrilli is refreshing. We can move past the claim that charters enroll exactly the same kids. We can acknowledge that they are created to skim off the best kids in the poorest neighborhoods. And increasingly, they are opening in affluent neighborhoods where they will skim off top students and destabilize successful community schools.

His post reminds me of a dinner I attended a few months ago in Chicago with a wealthy charter supporter. He said that they are schools for the kids who are motivated to succeed. I asked him what we as a society should do with the other kids. He didn’t know or care.

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It just seems like crimes, crimes, crimes. Why aren’t there congressional hearings against all this discrimination??
It’s such swift erroneous manipulation of a basic right to a fair and appropriate education.

“I asked him what we as a society should do with the other kids. He didn’t know or care.”

So Diane, how do you comprehensively and constructively answer that question? Especially in the context of today’s economic climate and the willingness and capacity (or lack thereof) of our country’s taxpayers to pay for all the needed services of government, including education. Whether the “strivers” are in charters, magnets or neighborhood schools, what do we as a society do with the “non-strivers”, wherever they are?

If you don’t care, you don’t look for solutions. If you care, you start looking for solutions. If it were up to me, I’d turn to the most experienced educators in the system, the school, or this blog, and yes, we would have answers. We would not toss away the lives of non-strivers as insignificant. I assume you would. You better hope that no one ever decides that your children are non -strivers.

One good question to ask is, “Why are the ‘non-strivers’ failing to strive?”
If you’re a profit-motivated education company, you really don’t care beyond realizing that they aren’t striving and therefore aren’t profitable (servicing them will mess with the bottom line). You eat the fruit, throw away the peel, and let someone else worry about “garbage disposal”.

“We would not toss away the lives of non-strivers as insignificant. I assume you would. You better hope that no one ever decides that your children are non -strivers.”

1. Bad assumption.
2. The moral, ethical, and policy questions implicated by “skimming” are more complex than a single determination whether we should or should not “toss away the lives of non-strivers as insignificant.” I assume you know that. Bad assumption?
3. I have a son, in public school in NYC, and I worry about him. You don’t need to tell me what I should hope for him.

“1. Bad assumption.
2. The moral, ethical, and policy questions implicated by “skimming” are more complex than a single determination whether we should or should not “toss away the lives of non-strivers as insignificant.” I assume you know that. Bad assumption?
3. I have a son, in public school in NYC, and I worry about him. You don’t need to tell me what I should hope for him.”

Flerper, with the accusation that Diane does not have all the answers, you are actually over-simplifying the issue.

She stated that equality of educational opportunity is where the conversation begins–she didn’t say that the resulting inequality that stems from skimming those who strive is the only part of this dilemma that matters.

You obviously care about your own child. I await your solutions to the inequality issues we are experiencing in education on behalf of every child and the communities that benefit from equality.

If Mr. Petrilli had a chance to attend a cocktail party with the list of (by his definition
“Non-Strivers”)identified learning disabled men and woman who have contributed amazing gifts to our global society, I am sure he would make the time and buy the ticket. He would do well with a 101Course on how challenged learners are hard working “Strivers” which science recognizes along with their struggle and requirements for a level education playing field in order to achieve. He would of course try to find that value added gifted LD for his recruitment to the global workforce but would likely lose them as they often don’t come into their own later then the average learner. Often pushed through and many times dropped without the chance to explore their possibilites for success for themselves or us. The expediency of the Charter schools are not warm and fuzzy environments for these often creative learn differently learner.

But then, Mr. Petrilli, you know that with a world filled with enough value added problem
free babies you have no real incentive to finance or be concerned with educating the
rest. Afterall, there are not enough jobs for everyone anyway so this is really a numbers
game all along. The rest will fight for the scraps and be left to survive without concern
by those such as yourself. Shame!!

“He would of course try to find that value added gifted LD for his recruitment to the global workforce but would likely lose them as they often don’t come into their own later then the average learner.”

The same can be said of many students in the arts. It has been my experience that some students peek early as they are “discovered” for having some kind of “talent,” yet others will blossom later on. Often, it is the late bloomer who will actually have a successful career as an artist, and the student whose innate ability manifests itself while he is young often hits a wall. I have learned to never, NEVER give up on any student.

Charters are like private schools in that they do not deal with problems they just eliminate them as they are bad for business in their model. Just look at who set up this mess, Why it’s Rhee and the other happy campers of the business model of education of our youth.

The corporate reform movement has been setting up an educational caste system from its inception. Petrilli is simply stating openly what the profiteers and politicians couldn’t say prior to NCLB and RttT at the risk of loosing the ‘sale’. They had to hide behind their rhetoric of saving poor kids to avoid push back from parents and community members who would never agree to the destruction of their public schools. They had to marginalize and demonize their critics (note how Diane has been expelled from the A list and attacked in the press) They could never reveal that private investors are funneling our public school money into the coffers of CEOs or that edu-compaines wrote favorable legislation through ALEC.

Arne Duncan’s DoEd has signaled they will not enforce equity, equality, or access for all children. Petrilli knows this. Privatization of our public schools is institutionalized all over the country backed by the full force of the federal and state governments.

Well, his commentary might have been refreshing, your question to the charter supporter very important, but he obviously did know and did care! We had better come up with a meaningful practical answer to your question because the “Reform” movement has their answer, as have private schools and home schoolers and many in government.

Agree that it’s refreshing to see a nationally-recognized charter supporter concede that charters skim via enrollment, expel/counsel-out the problem students, and leave the neighborhood public schools with the unskimmed/problem students.

Seems like a productive/”American” approach to Petrilli’s arguments is to 1) shut down the charters; 2) allow the public schools to track students by motivation/behavior; 3) initiate reforms in the public schools specifically addressing the motivation/behavior issues, starting in pre-K and continuing through high school; and 4) initiate reforms in either the low-SES communities and/or the low-SES-area.schools specifically focusing on the educational disadvantages, particularly regarding health and limited word exposure/weak vocabulary, that disproportionately adversely impact low-SES students.

Finally, honesty. We actually all know what you say is true. Anyone who has taught for awhile knows that even one majorly disruptive student can make a whole class hard to teach and result in less learning for all. We all know that high achieving students working together with only each other will produce better gains. However, as teachers we didn’t spend too much time whining about it. It was our reality, and we kept doing our best to give the most possible to each student. It was also our reality that we didn’t succeed with them all, despite trying our best.

Obviously it wasn’t enough because along came NCLB that told us we needed to do better, and really succeed with all kids. It still wasn’t worth complaining about because even though we knew NCLB’s demands for proficiency were going to eventually be impossible to attain, we knew that it was really our job to do our best by all of them. Then this morphed into VAM, doubling down on the idea that it was unacceptable for students to not succeed, making test scores the only thing that truly mattered and laying all accountability for achievement directly at the teacher’s feet.

So, we have demonized an entire generation of teachers because they couldn’t reach them all. Charters we have been told, were the answer. They could do what the public schools couldn’t. And now it turns out that these charters can’t reach them all either. Further, they are unapologetic about not even trying, because now somehow what we have been demonized for is ok. They are serving the needs of the “striver”, who shouldn’t have to be in classes with the “slackers”, who will simply slow them down. Slackers go to public schools, which will now be entirely populated with them, along with special ed. Students, and English language learners, i.e. those who can’t hack it in charters.

Well, Amen. But if this is true, why did we even care about the drop-out rate in public schools to begin with? After all, it’s just the same process getting rid of the dead weight. Let them go work in the strawberry fields. But I guess you can counter with the argument that in your scenario slackers still get to go to school. Wow. Public schools of the future = the new GED.

I personally am sick of teaching students who don’t care. 99.9999% of my failures are from students who are lazy and don’t want to do any work required for a course. It would be delightful to teach a group of students who want to learn. Even the honors students are grubbing for grades rather than wanting to learn. Multiple choice tests have ruined today’s students. They only want to get good grades with no effort and to know the “right” answer rather than exhibiting any curiosity. The others should have the opportunity of going to a vocational high school, which unfortunately, isn’t available in my county. Not all students are college material. The public schools and society need to value the trades as well as college prep. Charter schools might syphon off the top kids, but if all parents had vouchers and could choose where to send their students, then they could send them to good, solid, schools. Healthy competition is good for all.

Not all “college-material” kids are trade material, either. I shudder to think of where our society would be without American tradespeople. It’s bad enough every major corporation outsources labor–soon the prices of importing will catch up with us. You better learn how to be your own plumber and electrician, too. Car stop running? Just get a new one since you’ll “no doubt” be able to afford a disposable car just like every other citizen. After all, we’ll all be college graduates with excellent jobs. Future mechanics need not apply for an American education–apparently they’re supposed to go to college for STEM job-training since that’s all that matters.